T. LOUIS - The sun was bursting from a clear blue sky, but nobody was lining up for Dan Pinson's hot dogs yesterday.
Pinson had parked his cart and opened his umbrella in Kiener Plaza, a cheery, flower-filled park in downtown St Louis, just like he does every day. The plaza, usually crammed with people on days like this, was almost deserted.
''I should have a line way out to here,'' he said, pointing to the edge of a fountain bubbling with water dyed red in honor of the St. Louis Cardinals, whose World Series hopes ended Monday night. ''Instead, it's 12:15 and I'm sitting here talking to you.''
The square was nearly empty, Pinson surmised, partly because Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan had been killed in a plane crash the night before. For some, politics doesn't mean much right now.
''It's very solemn today,'' he said.
Yesterday was to be St. Louis's big day, with this year's third and final presidential debate held here. Preparations at Washington University had become frenzied in recent days. Workers hammered down fences, hoards of police officers swooped down, and students learned that, for a few days at least, they wouldn't be walking wherever they wanted. The cover of yesterday's student newspaper showed a man carefully cutting grass with a dainty pair of scissors.
Despite the inconvenience, however, some were mighty excited about the debate. St Louis, and the university, deserved their due, said many natives.
But Carnahan's death has made it hard to feel really good about much in St. Louis. The city that was looking forward to the national spotlight now finds itself focused on a local tragedy. Residents who woke this morning expecting to deal only with the Cardinals' loss were now grappling with something much more serious.
''It's such a tragedy,'' said Tom Jaeger, 52. ''It's a hard thing to think about a presidential race. At least, that's how I think a lot of people here feel.''
The debate is ''good for St. Louis, because it's televised, and everybody sees it,'' said Katie Pate, 46, a telephone company employee whose fellow workers have been preparing for the debate for weeks. ''But they should have canceled it, or postponed it.''
Plenty of folks in St. Louis and at Washington University believe they sometimes aren't treated fairly by the rest of the country. The city is sometimes written off, some of them say. And the university, which some students and educators consider to be of Ivy League caliber, rarely gets the credit it deserves, they said.
''People think we're in the middle of the country and we're losers,'' said Ken Gianino, 46, who sat on some steps in Kiener Plaza.
''Any attention the city gets is always good,'' said Jeff Rousseau, a 29-year-old attorney.
But that didn't seem so important now. Today's talk in the elevators was of Carnahan alone.
''Even people who didn't like his politics liked him as a person,'' Rousseau said. ''They considered him a pretty good guy.''
Students on campus had plenty of political events planned for yesterday. Some had hoped to attend Bush or Gore rallies. Justine Elliot, a junior and a member of Students for Choice, had hoped to attend a Gore rally yesterday, but it was canceled out of respect for Carnahan. Elliot had changed her registration from Pennsylvania to Missouri just so she could vote for Carnahan, a Democrat, because of his support for abortion rights.
''I was excited,'' she said. ''I'm still excited, but this has dampened my mood.''
Missourians, those coveted swing voters chosen to represent Ordinary America last night, would be a difficult audience, said Washington University junior Brian Schnall.
''Carnahan's death will take the fire out of it,'' said Schnall. '' This is such a huge tragedy, now Missouri voters will have two big things on their minds. It'll distract voters.''
Still, that might not be bad for voters, said Curtis Jewell, a sophomore. Carnahan was locked in a hard-fought race to unseat Republican Senator John Ashcroft on Nov. 7. The race was one of the most closely watched in the country and looked more like a national contest than a state race: The candidates had raised $16 million and were locked in an ad war.
''This is a taste of reality,'' he said. ''Something like this, it puts things in perspective. There are real people and real emotions involved in this process. When we have the debate here, there's a lot of hype. But when you have the death of the governor, it puts it back to the human quality of what's going on.''
